Foreword

I first started to write “Okinawa” way back in 1996. Back then, the Internet was still new, and there was not much available in the way of “erotica”. The biggest way to exchange such stories was still Usenet message groups, and the archive for the ASSTR (alt.sex.stories) Usenet group was still the main means for most to read them.

And the stories in that era were very different than today. Most stories were amazingly short, often 10k or less and could be read in 5 minutes. Little more than boy meets girl, boy fucks girl, the end. I started writing in that era, and soon grew bored of most of the stories I read. So in response, started to write the kind of stories that I would like to read.

When I started to post this on Usenet in 1997, it was amazingly long. Most stories never went past a single chapter, let alone 11 of them. And the feedback was quick, especially from veterans. Especially those that had actually been to Okinawa, and recognized many of the places I fictionalized in the story.

And much of the story clearly reflects the time period in which I wrote it. Writing in 1996, remembering back to the last time I had been on Okinawa in 1990, but writing as if it was roughly 1994. The Internet being brand new, e-mail and IRC the most common ways to communicate, and other than Usenet about the only place to find erotica was wandering through long ago gone hosts like GeoCities.

But as the years went on, I started to look back upon it with some discomfort. Most of that was little things, like the sloppy editing (once again exceptional for the time but not so much anymore). In addition, to other things. Like Martha only being 14 years old when she started working at the bar. Such young ages were common in sex stories of that era, or even younger. Nothing like today.

To those that read “Okinawa” in the past, there is no reason to read it again. No characters vanish, and 90% of the story is the same. However, this has been greatly cleaned up, some of the incidents and situations moved around a little, a lot of it fleshed out, and other minor changes. Martha is now 16, and most changes would likely never be noticed. Also, I made some tonal changes to some of the encounters, so Mike comes off much less as an “asshole” than he does in some of the chapters as originally written. And I am still leaving the original story here, for those curious as to what the erotica looked like a quarter of a century ago.

And as a side note, over two decades after I wrote this, I started writing an even more ambitions story, that became known as “Country Boy, City Girl”. And in the second part of that saga, the main character ends up stationed on Okinawa, circa 1984-1987. And in that, I made some cameos of both people and places from this story. Right after Pete arrives, his friend Frannie shows him around the island, including “Club Bamboo” and he sees the Banana Show. And on the way back they see a closed up club, where she would later bring her boyfriend to stay in the hotel next door. Indeed, that is what would become “Cheers” in this story. And when Pete is attacked and has to speak to the Marine Lawyers, the Japanese interpreter is none other than Itsuko Tamaki. And when Pete sells his car before he rotates back to the states, it is none other than the “piece of shit ‘82 Toyota” that Mike starts the story with. And indeed, when Pete returns much later in the story with Amanda, they revisit a now open Cheers, and talk to several of the ladies met in this story. Part of this revision was to bring the two stories more in alignment.

As a final note, the “Banana Show Lady” was indeed real. Even when I was there in the 1980’s, some old Gunnery Sergeants would tell us she had been doing that back in the 1960’s during the Vietnam War. I last saw her when I was there in 1990, and at least as late as 2011 she was still performing the same act. But several posted that she had died on 30 December 2011. RIP, Okinawa Banana Show Lady.